Read the passage given below and then answer the questions given below the…
2025
Read the passage given below and then answer the questions given below the passage. Some words may be highlighted for your attention. Pay careful attention.
“In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes,” claimed pop artist Andy Warhol. Known as the “Prince of Pop,” Warhol was an American legend. He became obsessed with fame and famous celebrities, and he had an enormous influence on American art and culture. During his lifetime, Warhol was a painter, filmmaker, record producer, actor, and author. He was also an outlandish public figure. He socialized with everyone from street people to Hollywood celebrities to a president’s wife. Warhol’s “popular art” sparked an artistic revolution by asking the question, “What exactly is art?” Warhol also changed the idea of what it meant to be an artist. Warhol was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Slovak immigrants. His talent for drawing and painting emerged in high school. Then Warhol entered the commercial art program at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. He graduated in 1949 and moved to New York City to find fame. Warhol’s first big break came in August of that year. The editor of Glamour magazine asked him to illustrate an article. His real name was Andrew Warhola. But when the Glamour article was published, the credit mistakenly read “Drawings by Andy Warhol.” So he dropped the “a,” and Warhol was born.
Warhol became a successful business illustrator. He developed a unique style of repeating ink images with slight colour changes. In 1956, he had an important exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. In the sixties, Warhol rebelled against the era’s definition of fine art. His pop art included painting pictures of common, familiar images, such as dollar bills, celebrities, brand-name products, and newspaper clippings. Some of Warhol’s famous pieces include images of Campbell’s Soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, and portraits of celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jagger . In 1962, he founded The Factory. It became a studio teeming with artists, writers, musicians, and famous celebrities. Spurning the concept that every work of art must be unique, Warhol started mass-producing his silk screens. He often had assistants taking photographs of his works and reproducing most of his paintings.
Which sentence best sums up the main idea in this passage?
- A.
Andy Warhol was a famous artist who influenced American art & culture.
- B.
Andy Warhol became obsessed with fame & famous celebrities.
- C.
Making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art.
- D.
In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.
Attempted by 10 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
CONCEPT: A 'main idea' question asks for the single statement that best summarises everything a passage covers — not a supporting detail, not a decorative quotation, and not outside knowledge that never actually appears in the passage. The right choice must be broad enough to span the whole passage, yet grounded in what it actually says.
APPLICATION: This passage traces Andy Warhol's biography — his birth, art-school training, and name change — before moving through his rise as a commercial illustrator and his pop-art career: repeating ink images, iconic works, founding The Factory, and mass-producing silkscreens. Every paragraph feeds one throughline: he was a famous artist whose work reshaped American art and culture.
CROSS-CHECK — why the other statements fall short:
The claim about being obsessed with fame and celebrities is only one supporting detail drawn from the opening paragraph — it does not summarise the career and influence described in the rest of the passage.
The line about business and art being the same is a well-known Warhol quotation, but it never appears anywhere in this passage's text, so it cannot summarise content the passage never states.
The '15 minutes of fame' line is the quotation used to open the passage and draw the reader in — a striking opening sentence is not the same as a summary of everything the passage goes on to describe.
RESULT: Only the statement identifying him as a famous artist who influenced American art and culture is broad enough to summarise the passage as a whole, while staying grounded in what it actually describes.